Marcus Crassus' love for Tertulla was a great an unsullied thing, once. Theirs was a marriage celebrated throughout Rome as the paragon of partnerships, a bond unbroken for thirty-four years. If they could but look at each other through the eyes of their youth, there had to be a chance they would see the tragedy of this misadventure. I was there through all those years; I saw them newly wed, helped them build their homes, raise their children. No one knew the playful spirit and happy, stubborn intelligence of my lady from those days better than I-no one except her husband. I remember the banter between them the nights Crassus left with our fire brigade to make cheap purchase of some burning apartment building. The heat in their bedroom as lady Tertulla tried to coax her young spouse back to bed was enough to require the brigade’s expertise. It was embarrassing. But it was wonderful.
As atriensis, half my time was spent reviewing or turning away applications; every servant in Rome wanted to be a part of the familia of the house of Crassus. That, more than anything else I might remember, may be the greatest monument to the quality of the bond between this man and this woman.
Had so few months passed since Caesar had come between them? Khronos, the master deceiver, made those two-and-a-half years feel like the thirty that had come before. Time is the most unfair of gods, stealing from us a joyous hour in a moment, but over the same span, allowing us to languish in our misery for what seems like an age.
Time was taking its toll on Crassus, devouring him from the inside out. He woke from sleep haggard and ill-rested, plagued by the incessant chatter of his constant nighttime companions, Guilt, Shame, and Vengeance. More each day, dominus paid heed to those voices and would hear no other. They were his advisors now, urging him to bring this plan of destruction to light ever since Luca. Now here we were; he had made his nightmares a reality, not just for himself, but for tens of thousands who must also heed the madness of his daemons.
Was I the only one left who could still remember that better time, now locked away in a place neither dominus nor domina could reach? That is why you need a steadfast, reliable atriensis, one with long years of experience, one who knows all the secrets of the familia. Because, like a good atriensis, I believed I had the key.
Why should I care, you ask, especially now? I had a love as great as theirs once was. She was here, now; I had but to return to my bedroom to hold her in my arms, warm and gentled by sleep. And what of Livia? How could I take this chance and risk losing her all over again, this time for good? Livia the woman and Livia the wife would never understand why I, with only the thinnest sliver of success, would gamble everything. I had to trust that, should all be lost, Livia the slave would understand.
There was more. I had a son whose face even now began to grow indistinct in my mind, who if I saw today I might not recognize, and if I failed and perished, I would never know. Yet if I died, half the condition would be met that would set him free. And though I would never, ever wish for Livia’s death to complete the bargain, in my own idyllic image of a world without me, I prayed for compassion, prayed that Livia would return to Felix and that my lord and lady would give them their lives. What else could I do?
Finally, what of the changes that had come over me? Had I lost my mind? Had I grown as callous as Crassus in my willfulness? Would that I had been as mindful as that, for I might have been able to see alternative paths. No, it was something else that drove me now, a singular motivation that rudely shouldered all others aside-if Crassus was gone, what had become of Alexandros? I could not allow the man I had grown to revere and respect to disappear, for without him, I too would fade away.
It was too late for second thoughts. I harkened back to Menander, who commanded, “Let the die be cast.” As I walked back through the brightening halls of the Regia I said to the playwright’s ghost, “It is thrown.”
•••
It was a beautiful morning for my undoing. As quietly as I could, I had drawn the curtains opposite my work table and opened the doors leading out to the small balcony overlooking the island, the river and the city beyond. The sun had tired of painting the bellies of the eastern clouds, deciding instead to punch through them with rays of yellow-gold. Up there, where infinity had meaning, it looked so peaceful. I wondered with some longing what it might feel like to ride those celestial beams in silence, save for the rushing of the wind, to go wherever the starry morn would take me, to let go of thought and will. And just at the moment when Livia wrapped her arms about me from behind, I realized that once, long ago, I had been cordially invited at the point of a sword to do just that here on earth. But it was hardly the same thing.
She kissed my neck and I turned from the sunrise to her parted lips. With her tongue, she pushed the leaves of macerated mint into my mouth and snaked them about in such a way that my hands pressed lower to the small of her back, then lower still.
“No.” She pulled away from me, hips first. “I must leave early for the fort. Andros! You look awful,” she said. “Did you get any sleep at all?”
“Not very much, vulpecula. Come back here.” She shook her head, walking quickly to the lectus where she’d thrown her healer’s tunic. “I was restless,” I said, watching her pull her night tunic over her head. “Guests arriving, lots to do. Don’t trouble yourself about me. Go patch up a broken legionary. I’ll be fine.”
“Who said I was worried about you? Can you take Hanno today? Octavius has half the army training, the other half on parade.”
“He and I will have a grand time in the palace. If he ever wakes up.”
He did, about an hour later. Hanno insisted on getting himself dressed, and I donned my finest inner and outer tunics, black over white, since today was the day a procession of princely visitors would arrive to make obeisance to the new Roman governor and place before him their grievances, mostly remnants from Gabinius’ prior mis-administration. Indoors, I had no need for my steel slave plaque, or any markings for that matter, but I decided to wear my single phalera, the gold disk Crassus had given me before our departure from Rome. This, in addition, as always, to the simple necklace hidden beneath my tunic on which hung a single, worn scallop shell, a charm I never removed.
Hanno and I ate a light meal of fruit and bread, then we went to check on dominus. He was dressing in his senatorial toga for the occasion, and none too happy about it, as the day promised to be warm. Father Jupiter was in no mood for a hug, from either one of us, so after receiving a list of letters I was to compose, written in a scrawl only I could decipher, we returned to our quarters. I pushed the doors to the balcony wide open to feel the light breeze that every now and then would talk to the curtains who, respectful of my concentration, whispered their reply against the stone floor. Nothing sets the mood for a productive day’s work like a fresh pot of ink, a full tin of reed pens, a new roll of parchment sheets, and my cherished Nile River parchment weights (a gift from Livia when she’d first returned from Egypt). Behind me, Hanno sat cross-legged on the floor playing his favorite game of catch, tossing a balled up piece of parchment back and forth, trying to snag it with the articulated fingers of his gloves.
It occurred to me investigate. “Hanno, where did you get your ball?”
“I caught it! You saw it I bet you did.”
“I did. You are much better at that game than I ever would be.”
“I know,” he said seriously and somewhat sad. “You are not a good catcher like me.”
“That is true. I am a fairly accomplished thrower, however.”